Name: The Outfit
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Released: 2022-02-25T00:00:00+00:00
Cast: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O'Brien, Simon Russell Beale

The needle of Leonard Burling’s sewing machine hums through the quiet Chicago night, a solitary soundtrack to Graham Moore’s tightly wound thriller, The Outfit. Mark Rylance, with his trademark inscrutability, plays the English tailor exiled to a rough Chicago neighborhood, stitching suits for gangsters and eavesdropping on their secrets. The film’s strength lies in its claustrophobic setting—a single tailor shop where every thread and button seems to hold a secret.

Moore, best known for his Oscar-winning screenplay The Imitation Game, crafts a film that feels like a stage play translated to screen. The entire story unfolds within the confines of Leonard’s shop, a choice that amplifies the tension and makes the audience complicit in Leonard’s schemes. Rylance is magnetic, his performance a masterclass in restraint, delivering lines with a quiet intensity that lingers long after they’re spoken. Zoey Deutch shines as Mable, the sharp-witted teenager who becomes an unlikely ally, her chemistry with Rylance adding emotional depth to the film’s darker moments.

The plot is a twisty delight, a game of cat and mouse where Leonard must outwit not just the gangsters he sews for but also the FBI agents investigating them. Moore peppers the script with sharp dialogue and unexpected turns, keeping the audience on their toes. The soundtrack, composed by Alexandre Desplat, underscores the tension with eerie, off-kilter melodies that heighten the film’s uneasy atmosphere.

However, The Outfit isn’t without its flaws. The pacing stumbles in the second act, lingering too long on exposition and slowing the momentum of the thriller. Some of the supporting performances, particularly from Dylan O’Brien and Johnny Flynn as the gangster duo Richie and Francis, feel one-note, their characters more caricature than flesh-and-blood.

But where The Outfit truly falters is in its genre fit. While it excels as a character study and a tense drama, its thriller elements sometimes feel forced, relying too heavily on coincidence and contrivance to keep the plot moving. The film’s climax, while satisfying, lands with a thud rather than a bang, undercut by a deus ex machina that feels more like narrative convenience than earned resolution.

Despite these missteps, The Outfit is a compelling watch, a testament to Rylance’s power as an actor and Moore’s skill as a writer-director.